About this book

Introduction

This book considers Foucault as educator in three main ways. First, through some consideration of what his work says about education as a social and political practice. That is, education as a form of what Allen (2014) calls benign violence – which operates through mundane, quotidian disciplinary technologies and expert knowledges which together construct a ‘pedagogical machine’. Second, through an exploration of his ‘method’ as a form of critique. That is, as a way of showing that things are ‘not as necessary as all that’, a way of addressing what is intolerable. This suggests that critique is education of a kind. Third, through a discussion of some of Foucault's later work on subjectivity and in particular on ‘the care of the self’ or what we might call ‘a pedagogy of the self’. Each chapter introduces and discusses some relevant examples from educational settings to illustrate and enact Foucault’s analytics.

Keywords

Benign violence Disciplinary institution Discipline and Punish Genealogy Learning under examination Normalising truth Pedagogy of the self Power knowledge Psychagogy Relations of power Social theory Subjectivity The Archaeology of Knowledge The History of Sexuality

Authors and affiliations

Stephen J. Ball

1

1.Department of Humanities and Social SciencesInstitute of Education University of LondonLondonUnited Kingdom